Gratiot jury doesn't have to decide when a cuke becomes a pickle

A jury in Gratiot County’s District Court almost had to make that decision before Gratiot County Prosecutor Keith Kushion pulled the plug.

“I dismissed the case,” he said.

The story began when a 23-year-old Saginaw man was cited for hauling a truck load of raw, recently harvested cucumbers that were sitting in a salt water solution.

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An officer with the state police’s motor carrier division ticketed the driver because truckers transporting non-raw or processed food have to have a special and expensive license or sticker, which he didn’t have.

The question before the jury then would have been: Were the pickles, because they were stored in a brine, processed food? Or, would the cucumbers begin processing when they reached the processing plant?

There is no case law on the cucumber/pickle question in the state of Michigan, Kushion said.

After his assistant did the research and jury selection was looming, Kushion said he had the case dismissed because, well, for one thing, he himself didn’t believe the cukes were processed food.

“And I didn’t want to get up in front of a jury in this farming community and argue it,” he said. “I believe the cucumbers were being transported in a brine so they wouldn’t spoil. We could not meet the burden.”

The driver was stopped coming from Sparks Farm near Ithaca and was headed to the Hausbeck Pickle Company in Saginaw.

Linda Gittleman may be reached at 989-463-6071, lgittleman@michigannewspapers.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lgittleman.